This most important provision gave to Russia a preferential right of protection of the Christian rayas not conceded to any other Christian Power. Provision also was made for the full access of Russian subjects to the holy city of Jerusalem. Free navigation was provided for Russian ships on the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, but nothing was said as to a right of access through the Dardanelles and Bosphorus. There was no mention of Poland in the treaty, though it had been the original cause of the war. Two secret clauses provided for the payment by the Porte of four millions of roubles within three years and for the withdrawal of the Russian fleet from the Archipelago. The importance of this treaty, moderate though it was in many of its terms, has always been recognized by historians as the starting-point for further and greater dismemberments of the Turkish Empire. The treaty of Carlowitz had secured the deliverance of the Christian population of Hungary from Ottoman rule. But this treaty now, for the first time, tore from the Empire a Moslem province and gave to Russia a right of intervention on behalf of all the Christian population—an immense innovation, humiliating to the Turks, and fraught with the gravest peril to their Empire in the future. There can be no doubt that the Grand Vizier was fully authorized by the Porte to agree to the terms of this treaty. He was, however, recalled and deposed immediately after its signature, and he died from the effects of poison on his way to Constantinople. It was probably thought by the ministers of the Sultan that Mouhsinzade, if called to account for concluding so humiliating a treaty, would be able to show their full responsibility for it. It remains only to state that the Russian plenipotentiaries at Kainardji delayed the signature of the treaty for four days in order that it might synchronize with the anniversary of the treaty of the Pruth, which had been the cause of so much humiliation to Russia. XVII TO THE TREATY OF JASSY 1774-92